After all these years, Vinny Testaverde still bleeds green, but he laments the perception of his former team. The Jets, with all the distractions and sideshows, are widely considered a circus.

"It’s been disappointing,” Testaverde told the New York Post Friday in New Orleans, where he showed up to promote next year's Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium. “There’s enough distraction throughout the course of a season without trying to add to that. If you can avoid distraction, your team, I think, focuses better, which in turn leads to better results."

The former Jets quarterback, who flourished under the controlling Bill Parcells, believes the Jets must do a better job of policing themselves.

"I think at times they’ve created somewhat of their own distractions, the distractions that lead to them not being as successful as they should be,” Testaverde told the newspaper. “Maybe (Rex Ryan) wants them to feel that pressure of being in the big city, playing under the big lights in New York and being able to deal with that in a week-in, week-out basis.

"I don’t know what his strategy is, but I know having played there, having played in Dallas, some of the bigger cities where the lights are brighter, you still need to eliminate as many distractions as you can."